SC dismisses PIL seeking 100 % matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs during vote counting on May 23
New Delhi, May 21: The Supreme Court Tuesday dismissed a PIL seeking 100 per cent matching of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during counting of votes on May 23 for Lok Sabha polls.
A vacation bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra refused to entertain the plea filed by a Chennai-based organisation 'Tech for All', saying that a larger bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi had already dealt with the matter and passed an order
"The CJI had dealt with this matter. Why are you taking chance before a two-judge vacation bench," the apex court asked.
"We cannot override the CJI's order... This is nonsense. The petition is taken on board. Dismissed," Justice Mishra said.
The apex court had on May 7 dismissed a review plea filed by 21 Opposition leaders led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu seeking that random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs be increased to 50 per cent.
The top court had on April 8 directed the Election Commission to increase random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs from one to five polling booths per assembly segment in Lok Sabha polls, saying it would provide greater satisfaction not just to political parties but also to the entire electorate.
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iPhone lands in temple hundial, everything in offering box goes into god’s account: TN Minister
Chennai, Dec 21: A devotee who has accidently dropped his iPhone into the hundial of a temple here is in a peculiar situation. He wants it back, but the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department politely declined his request, saying it has now become temple property.
Immediately after realising his mistake, the devotee later identified as Dinesh, approached the officials of the Sri Kandaswamy temple, Thiruporur, and pleaded that his iPhone which inadvertently fell into the offering box when he was making a donation be returned to him.
On Friday, after opening the offering box, the temple administration contacted him saying the gadget was found in the hundial and he was free to retrieve only the data from it. However, Dinesh refused to accept and insisted that his phone be returned to him.
When this issue was taken to the notice of the HR & CE Minister P K Sekar Babu on Saturday he replied “anything that is deposited into the offering box, even if it be an arbitrary action, goes into god’s account.”
“As per the practises and tradition at the temples, any offerings made into the hundial directly goes into the account of the deity of that temple. Rules do not permit the administration to return the offerings back to the devotees,” Babu told reporters here.
He would discuss with the department officials to see if there was any possibility to compensate the devotee and accordingly make a decision, the Minister said after inspecting the construction of the Arulmigu Mariamman temple in Madhavaram, here, and the renovation of temple tank belonging to the Arulmigu Kailasanathar temple in Venugopal Nagar, here at an estimated cost of Rs 2.5 crore.
This incident is not the first such one in the state. According to a senior HR & CE official a devotee S Sangeetha from Alappuzha in Kerala unwittingly dropped her 1.75 sovereign gold chain into the hundial of the renowned Sri Dhandayuthapani Swamy temple in Palani in May 2023.
The gold chain fell into the hundial when she removed the Tulasi garland around her neck to make an offering. However, considering her financial background and after confirming through CCTV footages that the chain had fallen by accident, the chairman of the temple board of trustees bought a new gold chain of same value at his personal expense and gave it to her.
The official explained that as per the Installation, Safeguarding and Accounting of Hundial Rules, 1975, none of the offerings made into the hundials can be returned to the owner at any point, as they belonged to the temple.
